Unlike their Western counterparts using papyrus scrolls, ancient Indians quoted down their knowledge on palm leaves or ‘bhoorja-patra‘ that were available in abundance in their tropical land. Palm leaves are water and moisture resistant, sturdy and once dried, cannot be eaten by bugs for centuries. Moreover, each plant offers thousands of leaves and each leaf can be cut into tens of ‘pages’, depending on size. In most cases, each page was kept rectangular and measured just few inches in length. Being ultimately thin in their cross-section each book stacked hundreds of pages and hence provided the ancient scholars with plenty of one-spot physical material at hand to textualize their thoughts or knowledge, a rare thing in those times otherwise! Most of the South Asian literature, sacred texts and other compositions between 10th and 13th century AD have been recorded in these palm-leaf books. A peacock feather and black soot from lamps were often used as pen and ink, respectively.
Source: greenchairpress
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